Language

yeshiva

Gosha was born in Uzbekistan in 1989. When permission to leave for Germany came in 2002, thirteen-year-old Gosha, his parents and grandparents found themselves living in Kiel in northern Germany. Kiel did have a tiny Jewish community, but no programs for the few young Jews in town. Gosha asked his parents to send him to a weekend seminar at our regional center in Hamburg. He returned the next month. And the next.

Gosha started taking his Judaism seriously. At the age of seventeen, Gosha moved to Berlin to enroll in our Yeshiva, while continuing his high school studies. Some weekends he stays in Berlin; other weekends he travels to Leipzig or Hamburg, where he leads Shabbat weekends for other youngsters who are starting to make their way back to Judaism.

After high school, Gosha will continue in Yeshiva while attending university, as do most of our students. When he graduates university, Gosha will be a great asset—a well rounded, deeply committed and thoroughly educated lay leader—which is what Jewish communities in Germany and Central Europe desperately need.

Gosha is one of more than thirty young men living and studying in our Yeshiva. Some will become lay leaders. Others will prepare for the Rabbinate in our ordination program. All of them, however, will enrich Jewish life in their communities, whether in Germany or further afield.